King Michael was of a very different mind in this matter. Determined on the subjugation of the whole Ukraine, he intrigued to hinder the Diet from confirming the peace, and thus induced the Cossacks to call in the help of Turkey, by threatening which they had stopped the progress of Sobieski. This brought on a fresh discussion in the Diet, in which Sobieski warmly urged the expediency of concession. Michael, however, persisted in his course; and from this period we may date the commencement of a league to dethrone him. In this, at first, Sobieski took no active, certainly no open, part. When compelled to declare himself, he asserted, with zeal, the right of the Republic to depose a prince who had shown himself unfit to reign. The consequences of this discord were very serious. At a Diet held in the spring of 1672, Michael was openly required to abdicate. To avoid this he summoned the minor nobility, who had no seats in the Diet, and with whom, having formerly been of their body, he was more popular, to meet in the field of Golemba, on the bank of the Vistula; and he thus raised a sort of militia, to the number of a hundred thousand, ready to uphold him as the king. Sobieski, encamped at Lowicz with an army devoted to him, maintained the cause of the confederate nobles. Neither party, however, was in haste to appeal to arms; and in the interim, Mahomet IV., with 150,000 Turks and 100,000 Tartars, invaded Poland. The king, instead of marching against the enemy, contented himself with setting a price on Sobieski’s head, in whom alone the hope of Poland rested. Too weak however to oppose the Turks, he sought the Tartars, who had dispersed to carry ruin through the country, routed them in five successive battles, and recovered an immense booty and thirty thousand prisoners from their hands. Meanwhile the Turks overran Podolia, and took its capital town, the strong fortress of Kaminiec, the bulwark of Poland. Incapable himself of action, and apprehensive alike of the failure or success of Sobieski, Michael hastily concluded an ignominious peace, by which the Ukraine and part of Podolia were ceded to Turkey, and the payment of an annual tribute was agreed upon.
This treaty of Boudchaz, signed October 8, 1672, prevented Sobieski from continuing the war, and he returned indignantly to his camp at Lowicz. Before the end of the year, the king found it necessary to adopt conciliatory measures, and Sobieski, and other nobles who had been outlawed with him, were restored to civil rights and the enjoyment of their property. At the Diet held in February, 1673, he inveighed against the scandalous treaty of Boudchaz, which, in truth, was void, being concluded without the sanction of that body, and it was resolved to renounce the treaty, and renew the war. Eighty thousand Turks were stationed in a fortified camp at Choczim, to overawe the newly-conquered provinces. November 12, 1673, Sobieski stormed their camp. Observing that the infantry wavered, he dismounted his own regiment of dragoons, and led them to the ramparts, which they were the first to scale. The infantry rushed forward to support their general; the entrenchments were won, and the Turks routed with great slaughter, and entirely disorganized. This victory was disgraced by the massacre of a great number of prisoners in cold blood. Soon after it the death of Michael relieved Poland from the burden of a weak king, and the Interrex stopped the victorious general’s progress, by requiring his attendance in Poland.